By The Numbers: Soccer Stats

  As the lead in this article by Jack Bell in last Friday's New York Times notes, "Soccer is not a sport seduced by numbers, unless that number is three — as in the points awarded for a win."

  However, there is a constant effort to quantify the sport along the lines of football and baseball.  Even when I played in college more than 45 years ago, the school's sports information director had to mention how many saves a goalie had in a match or how many shots were taken.  (In our case, our goalies had plenty of saves because the other teams took most of the shots.)  Watch a pro game now and you'll see information on time of possession, number of touches,  percent of bad passes, and more. 

  Now, those who want to dissect every last movement on the field, there is a book: “The Numbers Game,” subtitled “Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong.” According to the Times, it will be available this week, so I'll have to read it and let you know what I think.